Opening

Opening

A. Engaging the Reader (5 minutes)

Gather the students in a circle. Invite students to form groups of three to discuss the prompt from last night’s homework: “Talk to someone at home about Trisha’s challenge in learning to read. What challenges might you encounter as a reader this year? How might you overcome them?” If time permits, invite a few students to share out to the whole group.

Show students several illustrations from Thank You, Mr. Falker. For each illustration, ask students to Think-Pair-Share the important details happening in that scene: “Who do you see? What do you see? What’s an important detail you remember from this part of the story?” Study illustrations for 3 minutes to activate students’ prior knowledge.

Unpack the learning target: “I can answer questions using specific details from Thank You, Mr. Falker.” Ask students to turn and talk with a partner, restating this target in their own words.

Direct students to the Close Read recording form for Thank You, Mr. Falker anchor chart that they created. Remind students that today they will continue rereading, talking, and writing about this challenging text to understand it even better.

Work Time

Work Time

Meeting Students' Needs

A. Answering Text-Dependent Questions (25 minutes)

Remind students that they have already heard or read Thank You, Mr. Falker three times: the read-aloud for enjoyment and to get the flow of the story, once on their own and with groups to get the gist of it and find unfamiliar vocabulary, and then on their own and with groups to find and record important details and think about the story’s message or lesson.

Ask students to locate the excerpts from Thank You, Mr. Falker from Lesson 1 and distribute Thank You, Mr. Falker: Text Dependent Questions and Vocabulary. Review with students the process they went through to answer questions about Rain School, Nasreen’s Secret School, and That Book Woman. First, they read the questions. Then, they read the entire text, keeping those questions in mind. When they encountered details that could be used asevidence to answer a question, they underlined that section of the text. Review the word evidence with the class as something we use to prove an idea we have.

Review how to write answers to questions using a full sentence. The first half of the sentence is pulled directly from the question. The second half of the sentence is the evidence found in the text. Model this as necessary. Place students in groups, though they should work on the questions from the text independently. Circulate and support students in finding evidence and writing in complete sentences.

After 15 minutes of independent work time, ask students to discuss with their group the evidence they found for each question as well as the sentences they wrote as answers.

B. Vocabulary (25 minutes)

Students will now work with words or the words they circled during their rereading of Thank You, Mr. Falker.

Gather students in a circle and review the strategy they learned for finding the meaning of unfamiliar words while reading Rain School. Read the learning target: “I can determine the meaning of new vocabulary using clues in the text around a word.” Ask students to Think-Pair-Share what this learning target is and what they did with words in Rain School. Share as a whole group.

Tell students that Thank You, Mr. Falker is a really hard book. There might have been lots of words in this story that were difficult for them to understand. Tell them that one strategy that helps readers determine the meaning of a word is to look for clues in the text around the unfamiliar word, and then replace the word with other words that might mean the same thing.

On one side of an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of white paper, write the sentence: “The grandpa held the jar of honey so that all the family could see, then dipped a ladle into it and drizzled honey on the cover of a small book.”

Circle the word ladle. Think aloud the process of using clues in the sentence: “The grandpa is getting honey out of the jar; you need something to scoop up the honey.” Model the process of substituting other words for the unfamiliar word (i.e., spoon, scoop) until one makes sense.

Distribute a 3″ x 5″ index card to each student. Tell them that they will now choose a word from the list provided (see above) or the words they circled while reading their excerpts from Thank You, Mr. Falker. Give students 15 minutes of independent work time to do this with three words. Remind them that on one side they are to write the whole sentence that the unfamiliar word is in, circling the unfamiliar word. On the other side, they are to write two words that mean the same thing as the one that is circled.

Gather students back in the circle. Tell them they are going to play a quick game of Quiz-Quiz-Trade. Review the process of this game by modeling with one student. Remind students that they begin by showing their partner the sentence or phrase with the unfamiliar word circled. The second person then tries to guess the words on the back of the card. Because students have multiple cards this time, they should alternate turns.

Allow students to play Quiz-Quiz-Trade for 10 minutes using all three of their cards.

The difficult of the vocabulary in Thank You, Mr. Falker may require greater teacher involvement in the vocabulary card and Quiz-Quiz-Trade activities.

The focus of this work is for students to use context clues in determining the meaning of unknown words. See teacher-created list of words (and their context) that lend themselves to this vocabulary strategy.

Closing & Assessments

Closing

A. Debrief (5 minutes)

Gather students back in a circle. Debrief with the first question: “What are some strategies you used as a reader to answer the questions about Thank You, Mr. Falker?” Share as a whole group.

Ask the second question: “What are some strategies you used as a reader to figure out tricky vocabulary words in Thank You, Mr. Falker?” Share out as a whole group.